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Week 173: Goats, Kung-Fu, and Aliens May 21, 2007
The big event this time around has been that my mom ("Nana" to Sam) came to visit for over a week, getting much needed quality time with the kids. Both of them warmed back up to her quickly, even after Sam rooted through my mom's suitcase for the last of the gifts she had brought. Sam also seems to think that Mother's Day isn't officially over until Nana goes home, so she's been opening every morning with "Happy Mother's Day!"
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We had a number of activities planned, such as going to a local farm-slash-theme-park where Sam got a chance to feed some goats, though she did get a bit freaked out when they started sneaking up behind her, ninja style, to nibble on her hair. The weather started out great that day, but a storm blew in right after we had a chance to eat a ridiculously overpriced and frankly gross lunch. The park actually has a tram that you have to take from the main area to the parking lot, so naturally hundreds of people rushed the boarding area at once when the rain started to pour. And guess who didn't have any umbrellas? That's right: everyone.
The soggy crowd erupted into pandemonium as soon as the trams started arriving, and between trying to grab Sam and break down the stroller, I lost track of Ger and Mandy. People were screaming, the rain was falling, and some guy in a uniform had just put up a red nylon rope between me and the tram. Suddenly someone was shouting my name and I look up to see Geralyn holding Mandy and waving to me from her place on the departing tram. In a flash of assertiveness I grabbed Sam, ducked under the rope, and bolted onto the train. People started screaming and someone began shouting at me over a loudspeaker, but I dove into the seat next to Ger and sat very, very still. I figured that if I didn't move they couldn't arrest me. Because that's only logical. And sure enough, after another moment the train departed. And then it coasted right past where our rain-soaked stroller was still sitting on the platform.
The fun thing was that since we were all four completely soaked by the time we got to the car, we went home and let Sam just put on her new rain coat and rubber boots so that she could go splash around in the rain. She had fun and it made for a good photo op:
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Mandy is coming along quite nicely. She's starting to get to the point where she's much more interactive, what with all the grabbing and the smiling and the following trying to keep her eyes on you even if it means arching her back until she's forehead to butt. She's getting extremely vocal, too. Her new favorite thing is to make these really high-pitched but happy shrieking sounds to entertain herself. She'll be lying there going "WWWRRREEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHAAAAAAAAWWWW!" I'm pretty sure she's perfecting a Bruce Lee impresonation, and that one day while I'm strolling past her pack-and-play she'll come flying out with a roundhouse kick to the side of my head.
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Sam is also doing fine in general. She's learning to play by herself a bit, but most of the time she insists that one of us accompanies her so that she has something to boss around. She's also picking up some weird ideas, as I found out the other day when I was lying on the groud helping her name her stuffed animals. Mostly she gives them fairly literal names like "Pink Bear" or "Baby Dog." At one point, though, I held up this little pink alien:
"What's this guy's name, Sammy?" I said, holding up the alien.
She gave him a quick look. "That's Pedro."
It took me a second, but I couldn't help laughing.
"Okay, no more Fox News for you, Sam."
Comments (4) |
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File under:
Parenting
Tags: Amanda, Parenting, Samantha
Comments
Posted by jjohnsen on May 21, 2007 3:54 PM:
Tell me the truth. When you get a picture of Sam with a cute-as-pie expression (like the upper left umbrella photo), are you coaching her to make that cute face or has she just figured out how to look great when dad's camera comes out?
Posted by Jamie on May 21, 2007 5:30 PM:
Pure luck. Sam is actually a pretty frustrating subject to work with. Not only does she refuse to take direction, she will often hide her face or do the opposite of what I ask. Probably just to piss me off. I just take dozens of pictures at a time and rely on chance to get some keepers.
For example, looking at my archives I see I took over 200 pictures this last week. I trashed almost half of them, then distilled the remaining down to the 12 posted here. And of those 12, I think really only this one and this one are what I'd call really good ones. For me, anyway.
So that's, what, about a 1% keeper rate? Hooray for digital!
Posted by shawn on May 23, 2007 6:34 AM:
What happened to the stroller????
Posted by Jamie on May 23, 2007 6:43 AM:
It got really wet, but it came on the next train. We just had to wait for it.